Thank you for bearing with The Lifeline. Its author is handling some health issues. Since we are pro-life, you can’t give what you don’t have, and all. After a little hiatus for most of February, for the next few months, The Lifeline will be a monthly feature. Again, thank you for reading. And thank you for your patience. I hope to have some additional features when the weekly newsletter returns, in the spring. (Northeasterners, have faith. It is coming.)
Adopting Creative Educational Strategies on Adoption
Let me take a moment to acknowledge the powerful commercial on adoption that the Opt Institute produced for the Super Bowl. It captured the reality. A woman — or girl — who is facing an unplanned pregnancy is met with lots of noise. She “deserves,” as the commercial says, to know that “adoption is an option.” It’s part of the Opt Institute’s Adoption Is an Option campaign.
We need to do this on the community level, in churches and other places of worship. In schools. With informed consent laws. And, of course, in families. And the occasional big-time commercial or educational campaign can’t hurt. Here’s the commercial, in case you missed it. And here’s a write-up from our friend Katie Yoder (a former National Review staff member, with the best of smiles that radiates joy). Katie cites research from other friends — Ryan Hanlon, formerly of the National Council for Adoption, and Elizabeth Kirk, assistant professor of law at the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law, and co-director of its Center for Law & the Human Person:
Three main barriers to adoption: Misinformation and confusion, social pressures for other options and emotional concerns. Among other things, they advocate for informing expectant parents that private domestic adoption is not foster care; that they can choose the adoptive family; that open adoptions are standard; that emotional, legal and financial support is available; and that most adoptees and birth parents see their adoption experiences positively.
I talked with Elizabeth and Ryan about their study here.
The Opt Institute also has the “I Am That Kid” initiative, featuring adults who were adopted in their youth. Here’s the founder of the Opt Institute, John Knox, talking about his own story as an adoptee.
For more encouragement about adoption, here is a short documentary (30 minutes), if you haven’t seen it: I Lived on Parker Avenue. Not to give it away, but Parker Avenue was the address of an abortion clinic. David Scotton’s life was a close call. Thanks be to God for the courage of birth mothers. The 2022 movie Lifemark, starring Kirk Cameron and produced by the Kendrick Brothers, Christian moviemakers, was based on the Scotton story.
Do send me your foster care and adoption stories anytime: klopez@nationalreview.com
Gone Are the Days When the GOP Was Reliably Pro-Life
Earlier in the week, I saw that Barbara Pierce Bush, one of George W. Bush’s daughters, is headlining an upcoming Planned Parenthood fundraising luncheon. This is not her first time lending a hand to the abortion business. The news reminded me of how courageous George W. Bush was. He was surrounded by women who were advocates of legal abortion and yet he took an important stand against embryonic stem cell research.
I suspect I know some of what I’ll see in the comments:
But Donald Trump was the first president to show up at the March for Life!
And he is the most pro-life president, possibly the most pro-life man who ever lived.
The evidence for the claim that he’s the “most pro-life president” have been his Supreme Court appointments. These same justices, however, are no longer in the president’s favor. And you can actually thank Leonard Leo for the justices, Leo being someone whom Trump doesn’t seem to think he needs anymore.
I nominate Bush for the “most pro-life president” label, for his courage. He wasn’t operating from political convenience when he brought in philosophers, scientists, and religious leaders to help him make the most informed decision regarding embryonic stem cell lines. This was not a pressing issue for voters, to put it mildly.
I remember being at the White House during Bush’s last January in office. It was the morning of the March for Life, and he invited many leading pro-life leaders to celebrate the sanctity of innocent human life, including Nellie Gray, the founder of the March for Life, who was clearly overwhelmed and overjoyed to be there. Bush would always send a video message to the March for Life. I was always grateful and found it thoughtful of him to not show up in person. The president changes everything: new security measures, a general mess. Kids who have been on buses all night don’t get into the rally on time and/or don’t know where the start of the march is. They deserve better than presidential narcissism. The March for Life isn’t about politicians so much as it is about innocent unborn human life — and their mothers and fathers.
Meanwhile, the Republicans removed from their platform the goal of ending abortion in America. The president is a moral mess on IVF, which is harmful to unborn human life and to women. Watch this interview I did with Ericka Andersen, who learned about the morality and pain of IVF the hard way, even though she is tremendously grateful for her children, born via IVF.
Jesse Jackson on Life
God rest the soul of Jesse Jackson. In 1973, he said: “Abortion is genocide. Anything growing is living. . . . If you got the thrill to set the baby in motion and you don’t have the will to protect it, you’re dishonest.”
Dan McLaughlin wrote a bit about this here, citing this:
In the abortion debate one of the crucial questions is when does life begin. Anything growing is living. Therefore human life begins when the sperm and egg join and drop into the fallopian tube and the pulsation of life take place. From that point, life may be described differently (as an egg, embryo, fetus, baby, child, teenager, adult), but the essence is the same. The name has changed but the game remains the same. Human beings cannot give or create life by themselves, it is really a gift from God. Therefore, one does not have the right to take away (through abortion) that which he does not have the ability to give. . . .
Another area that concerns me greatly, namely because I know how it has been used with regard to race, is the psycholinguistics involved in this whole issue of abortion. If something can be dehumanized through the rhetoric used to describe it, then the major battle has been won. So when American soldiers can drop bombs on Vietnam and melt the faces and hands of children into a hunk of rolling protoplasm and in their minds say they have not maimed or killed a fellow human being something terribly wrong and sick has gone on in that mind. That is why the Constitution called us three-fifths human and then whites further dehumanized us by calling us “[n***ers].” It was part of the dehumanizing process. The first step was to distort the image of us as human beings in. order to justify that which they wanted to do and not even feel like they had done anything wrong. Those advocates of taking life prior to birth do not call it killing or murder; they call it abortion.
This is the story of many a Democrat — Joe Biden, for instance, was once pro-life, until he realized it was better for his career in the party to abandon that position. Jackson, however, was clearly bothered by man’s inhumanity to man, even on so-called life issues. As Wesley Smith has pointed out, Jackson was outspoken in his opposition to the killing of Terri Schiavo, the woman who was in a coma in Florida. She was taken off food and water in 2005.
Other Items
For a former New York mayor who was eager to make abortion pills available in vending machines, this, from Eric Adams, is refreshing. He’s happily anticipating Nor’easter babies this week.
If you’ve ever spent time in a nursing home, you’ve likely seen some depressing sights. While I worry that this might be accessible only to those with plenty of money to spare, I like the idea behind this “dementia village,” with all the amenities. The key is community. And not only for the elderly. We all need it, though they’ve certainly earned it. More details:
The Wisconsin village is expected to house up to 65 full-time residents. It will also welcome roughly 40 to 50 Day Club members, adults with dementia who live at home but spend their days participating in activities alongside village residents.
Naomi Schaefer Riley: “Another Toddler Dead Because Progressives Believe ACS Should Be Abolished”
Kristen Day, of Democrats for Life: “No Student Should Have to Choose Between a Degree and a Baby”
This is a delightful video of couples finding out they are pregnant. You might not want to watch it around impressionable young ones: there is one quick expletive, voiced in joyful surprise (such is the state of our vocabularies).
‘Err on the Side of Compassion’
John Gerardi — a husband and father who runs Right to Life of Central California — writes in these parts about the abortion abolitionist movement.
I confess, I’ve previously avoiding bringing attention to it — the movement would have women face legal penalties for having abortions. For the longest time, I’ve been able to say that pro-lifers do not want to criminalize women. (When Trump said something about punishing women to Chris Matthews many moons ago, he made clear that he didn’t really know pro-lifers.) But that has changed.
I understand Abby Johnson’s position in favor of this. She is the former director of a Planned Parenthood in Texas who famously quit, converted to Catholicism, and now opposes abortion. She says that she would not have had multiple abortions had there been the possibility of legal consequences. She also believes that it’s a matter of consistency to support laws that would hold women to account for their abortions. But our culture is simply too much of a pressure cooker, and women are often coerced into having abortions. If a runaway who was manipulated into prostitution was later forced to have an abortion, would it be just for her to be punished?
I’m fine with imposing legal and criminal penalties on doctors who choose to perform abortions in — or mail abortion drugs to — states where abortion is prohibited. But a woman who has had an abortion is suffering, and she will suffer for the rest of her life. Abby wouldn’t deny this pain. Until we change the culture, I don’t think we should be considering penalties for women.
Around National Review
Alexander Raikin is always a must-read. His latest, in the new issue of the magazine, is no exception. From “Just Have More Babies”:
It is not only marriage and fertility where Israel diverges from the rest of the world. Israel’s abortion rate has been steadily declining since 1988, despite a loosening of abortion eligibility rules in 2022. Its abortion rates are much lower than anywhere in Europe or in the United States, even though Israeli committees that adjudicate abortion requests rubber-stamp virtually all of them. . . .
So what actually explains Israel’s exception? The answer is less glamorous than sweeping policy blueprints and more demanding than onetime subsidies: It is culture, transmitted through social networks and reinforced by everyday norms. The choice to be married, to have children, and not to choose abortion are all tied together.
Ramesh Ponnuru: “Yes to Pro-Life Realism, No to Pro-Life Defeatism”
Tim Chapman & Marc Wheat: “Trump Should End the FDA’s 25-Year Cover-Up on the Abortion Pill”
Michael J. New: “Pro-Lifers Should Push for These Realistic Policy Goals”
Wesley J. Smith: “U.K. Hospital Unilaterally Cuts Off Life Support of Disabled Patient over Family Objections”
Me: “When Trump Mentioned IVF at the State of the Union, He Said More Than He Intended”
A New York State of Life
I highlight here some things the outgoing archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, had to say about assisted suicide and abortion in the state. I share some thoughts about his pro-life commission chair, as well.
His successor, Archbishop Hicks said this in his installation homily:
We are called to be a missionary church; a church that catechizes, evangelizes and puts our faith into action; a church made up of missionary disciples who go out and make disciples, passing the faith on from one generation to the next. A church that takes care of the poor and the vulnerable. A church that defends, respects and upholds life, from conception to natural death. A church that cares for creation, builds bridges, listens synodally, protects children, promotes healing for survivors and for all those who have been wounded by the church. A church that shows respect for all, building unity across cultures and generations.
Last Things
Interested in organizing a fish fry for foster families? For the sake of kids in foster care in your community? Springs of Love has information here.
Heartbeat International — a clearinghouse network of and for pregnancy care centers around the world — is having its annual meeting in Cincinnati between March 25 and 27. The theme is the “Power of Love.” I will be disappointed if Huey Lewis and the News aren’t not played at least once.
Make your plans now for the Christian Alliance for Orphans’ annual summit. It’s in Atlanta this year, September 23–25.
That’s all for now. Thanks for bearing with me. (Do you know that the execs here at National Review are thoroughly pro-life when editors are having health crises?) Thanks for reading. Know of my prayers for you all. And holler anytime: klopez@nationalreview.com. Also, keep an eye out on the Corner for a return of my annual Sisters of Life fundraiser to mark my birthday (a milestone one) in March.